Cigarettes should be illegal.

[A.A.K]

Weed is less harmful than cigarettes. At least weed help people in a way. That and it's natural unlike the thousands of chemicals in the average cigarette. And in what way does a cigarette help anybody. If you know a way please tell me. But they should just ban them without hesitation.

Irrelevant whether it is or isn't harmful to people. You have no right to impose any idea on to someone else.

If I want to smoke, you have no right to tell me I can't/shouldn't.
If I want to drink, you have no right to ....
If you wanted to tell me that it's harmful, that doesn't matter because -
If I wanted to put a gun to my head, you have no right to tell me I can't/shouldn't.


I could have put this in a nicer way, but I'm tired and this gets the point across.

 

[Calibanbutcher]

snip

Snip

You need less than 2g of salt a day, yet we all ingest close to 10g.
And while fat is a necessity, since essential fatty acids are damn important, we often eat too much of it.
And as far as he "fads" are concerned:
NO fat diets are stupid, since some fatty acids are essential.
But no carbs actually works, since carbohydrates are in no way necessary for survival.
Your body is capable of producing the needed carbohydrates himself, so there really isn't any use in eating carbs.

And, generally speaking, bad eating habits ARE worse in every conceivable way:
1: http://www.rand.org/pubs/reprints/RP952.html

This study finds, that, on an individual basis, obesity (1+2) is just as bad as daily smoking, and generally speaking, obesity is just as bad, if not slightly worse than being a smoker.

Another finding is, that more people are obese (23%) than are smokers (19%).

=> Obesity, which is in most cases due to bad eating habits, is worse for individual and public health than smoking.

And there is more:
Due to obesity, several billons of gallons of gas are used on public and personal transportation, which would not be necessary were less people obese.
As should be common knowledge, the exhaust fumes of cars, busses and the likes are also carcinogen.
Thus, being obese is also bad for those around you and causes those in your wake health issues.

BUT there is more:
The cost of obesity:
Since obese people are absent from work more often, due to health reasons, than the "normal" individual, their employers are down app. 6.4 billion dollars a year to cover for them.
In addition to this, many obese employees are less productive than their normal counterparts, which makes for another loss of 30 billion $ a year.
This however is take from the obesese employee's paycheck and comes down to 76$ a month.
And since obese individuals have to spend more on health care ( an extra 3271 $ a year) (average american spends 512$) this makes for app. 190.000.000.000$ dollars a year spend more on health care. That's 20% of all US health-care spendings.
And the obese don't always have to pay for that themselves, no, the cost is transferred to the general public in the form of highered insurance premiums.

Added for your convenience:
Smoking adds sth. like 20% to medical expenses.
Obesity adds 20%.
Morbid obesity adds 50%.


and there is MORE:
Obese individuals might very well pose a safety threat on roads and in trains, since only now are cars and trains developped with breaking power high enough to support the extra wheight.


Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47211549/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/t/study-obesity-adds-billion-health-costs/#.T-iNzr-QD-k


Let me summarize that for you:
Obesity is worse than smoking for the general public and just as bad for the individual.

 

[T0BB0]

The argument over the legality of cigarettes shouldn't be based upon how it's more harmful than something that is illegal (or the similar argument that weed should be legalised because it's not as harmful as cigarettes). Weed and tobacco/nicotine affect the body in different ways, so I'm not sure why people insist on comparing the two when it comes to legality. By the same merit, I should campaign to have GBH and Assault/Battery legalised because it's not as damaging as Murder or Manslaughter. Legalisation of a product should be based upon the facts of the product, not on the comparison of that product to another one.

My personal opinion of cigarettes is that they are pointless. I have a few friends who smoke and used to smoke, the only advantage that I can see from smoking is that it temporarily negates the affects of smoking addiction. Example, "Smoking helps me relax, if I don't have a cigarette after lunch then I get all tense and frustrated". No, smoking is not helping you relax, smoking is helping you continue your smoking addiction. I don't smoke after lunch, and I don't get stressed by it because I don't have the addiction that they have/had. They are smoking to calm down the nerves they have because they've not smoked in a while.

I don't think it should be banned for this reason though. I was addicted to a popular MMO game for a few years, but this isn't a reason to stop anyone from enjoying it. I'm happy with the current situation it has in the UK right now. They are free to enjoy it in their personal property, and I can enjoy going to the pub without suffering the affects of second hand smoke.

 

[Treblaine]

snip

Snip

You need less than 2g of salt a day, yet we all ingest close to 10g.
And while fat is a necessity, since essential fatty acids are damn important, we often eat too much of it.
And as far as he "fads" are concerned:
NO fat diets are stupid, since some fatty acids are essential.
But no carbs actually works, since carbohydrates are in no way necessary for survival.
Your body is capable of producing the needed carbohydrates himself, so there really isn't any use in eating carbs.

And, generally speaking, bad eating habits ARE worse in every conceivable way:
1: http://www.rand.org/pubs/reprints/RP952.html

This study finds, that, on an individual basis, obesity (1+2) is just as bad as daily smoking, and generally speaking, obesity is just as bad, if not slightly worse than being a smoker.

Another finding is, that more people are obese (23%) than are smokers (19%).

=> Obesity, which is in most cases due to bad eating habits, is worse for individual and public health than smoking.

And there is more:
Due to obesity, several billons of gallons of gas are used on public and personal transportation, which would not be necessary were less people obese.
As should be common knowledge, the exhaust fumes of cars, busses and the likes are also carcinogen.
Thus, being obese is also bad for those around you and causes those in your wake health issues.

BUT there is more:
The cost of obesity:
Since obese people are absent from work more often, due to health reasons, than the "normal" individual, their employers are down app. 6.4 billion dollars a year to cover for them.
In addition to this, many obese employees are less productive than their normal counterparts, which makes for another loss of 30 billion $ a year.
This however is take from the obesese employee's paycheck and comes down to 76$ a month.
And since obese individuals have to spend more on health care ( an extra 3271 $ a year) (average american spends 512$) this makes for app. 190.000.000.000$ dollars a year spend more on health care. That's 20% of all US health-care spendings.
And the obese don't always have to pay for that themselves, no, the cost is transferred to the general public in the form of highered insurance premiums.

Added for your convenience:
Smoking adds sth. like 20% to medical expenses.
Obesity adds 20%.
Morbid obesity adds 50%.


and there is MORE:
Obese individuals might very well pose a safety threat on roads and in trains, since only now are cars and trains developped with breaking power high enough to support the extra wheight.


Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47211549/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/t/study-obesity-adds-billion-health-costs/#.T-iNzr-QD-k


Let me summarize that for you:
Obesity is worse than smoking for the general public and just as bad for the individual.

You need more OR less than 2g of salt per day depending on how much you excrete (sweat) and also your healthy body mass, so tall and muscular man needs less than a short and slim woman. The only person who can manage your salt intake is YOU! Do you really want government agent is a restaurant kitchen arresting chefs for putting too much salt in a dish?

No-carb diets only work by "tricking" the liver based on how it must process protein inefficiently for energy and has no way to easily store it. Without some fat consumption you suffer from protein poisoning, seen if you try to live on lean meats alone, aka rabbit starvation. And you can STILL get fat on a no-carb diet if you get enough fat. No-carb diets are a trick based on eating relatively lean meat and falls apart if you eat enough fat and you WILL crave fat. There is the issue that you need to eat foods that are high in carbohydrates like fruit and vegetables to get other essential nutrients.

You have got a small epidemiological study that somehow concludes that smoking has a small effect on health. That flies in the face of a MUCH larger body of evidence.

My point is AS A MATTER OF REGULATION nothing can be done about obesity. You can't ban food nor certain types of food. This thread is entirely about banning specific substances to varying degrees.

Selling tobacco to be smoked is DIRECTLY profiting off a habit that is SURE to increase cancer and slowly destroy their pulmonary system, there is NOT safe level of smoke inhalation.

Selling food is NOT directly causing obesity. Obesity is ENTIRELY on the individual, they decide to buy and eat TOO MUCH food and do not take the effort to exercise. There is a safe - no - NECESSARY amount of food consumption that is relative to the level of exertion. HAVE NO DELUSIONS, banning McDonalds will NOT rid obesity, it did not cause it. There ARE higher premiums from being obese with private insurance for dangerous BMI, this is not something everyone else has to unfairly foot the bill for.

The government cannot hope to ration food to tackle obesity, that will lead to a nightmare of the inefficient state trying to micro manage how many calories people burn and how many they have now "earned" to use in sugar credits. The state has a role in the extremes of behaviour, enforcing simple rules like "you can't do X here". This will push many from health weight into anorexia, so the government must also make sure people are eating enough. This is regulation no government is competent enough to efficiently administer.

---

Obesity => greater weight per passenger => more fuel for transport => more smoke in atmosphere => link to cancer = obesity kills gives others cancer

That's the most spurious link anyone can possibly get. Blowing cigarette smoke in people's faces DIRECTLY affects them.

Women carry Handbags => greater weight per passenger => more fuel for transport => more smoke in atmosphere => link to cancer = women's fashion gives others cancer

See, this is nonsense.

"The most obese men take 5.9 more sick days a year"

Is not a drastic change in productivity that severely affects other people considering that is for the MOST obese. It is in no way equivalent to the huge rate of GIVING OTHER PEOPLE LUNG CANCER which was the reason smoking is banned in most public buildings. And what would be the equivalent? Get the weight scales for everyone who wants to use a public bus. That wouldn't just stop an obese person boarding, that would also prevent a person of healthy weight boarding with two handfuls of shopping. And what about a tall muscular man, weighs as much as a short obese woman. Your ideas are spurious and I think deliberately impractical.

 

[Treblaine]

Extreme snip action!

What is the word that goes here? I want to say, "blammo!" but it doesn't seem to have the proper weight to it.

Schadenfreude for the health problem others have with obesity is no cure for cancer nor the other diseases of smoking. Nor does it solve cigarette smoking's anti-social aspects of littering, fire-causing, or simply bothering others with the emitted smoke. No one has ever complained that their dinner in a restaurant was disturbed because there was a fat guy being fat on the next table.

I find it weird how smokers are so happy to compare smoking with over-eating-and-under-excersising yet baulk at the suggestion smoking is like huffing solvents saying there is "no comparison".

Tobacco isn't as bad for you as you may think, it's all the harmful chemicals that are added to it that are killing people.

Got a source to back that up?

Because last time I checked, that was a lie made up by smaller cigarette manufacturers to try to escape that fact that INHALING ANY SMOKE - especially tobacco smoke - will slowly destroy your pulmonary system and cause cancer. No. You take the purest tobacco and smoke it it'll still screw up BECAUSE IT IS STILL THICK ACRID SMOKE!

While you are finding that source that smoking tobacco is in itself trivial compared to chemical, You might want to check this one:

http://www.cancer.org

Look at the SCIENCE! Cigarettes smoulder by the design of how the leaves are packed to produce the maximum amount of smoke that vaporises tar that deposited everywhere it touches, chemicals like benzenes, Acetaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide, Butadiene and carbon monoxide. Set fire to a house and breath in the plooming smoke from that inferno and you'll get the same lung full of crap.

 

[Calibanbutcher]

Extreme snip action!

What is the word that goes here? I want to say, "blammo!" but it doesn't seem to have the proper weight to it.

Schadenfreude sth...

I am sorry, but there was no Schadenfreude to be found in my post. I simply stated, that in general, obesity is worse for the health of the general public and just as harmful to the individual as smoking is.
If that came of as schadenfreudig, then I apologize.

snip

Snip

Snip

Snip.

I will admit, that I should have worded this differently:
You need app. 2g of salt a day.

And as far as no-carb diets go:
Did you read the part about NO-FAT DIETS BEING STUPID in my original post?
When did I ever ask for a no-fat, no-carb diet?
NO-FAT = NO GOOD.

And you do know, that a diet does not always entail losing weight?
I was referring to the concious choice of not eating carbs for several, sometimes even health related, reasons, and, under this prospect, eating fat is not prohibited, which is why fat is the main source of energy in a no-carb diet.
And whilst getting fat on a no-carb diet is possible, it's not as easy as getting fat on a regular diet.

As far as the "small" study is concerned:
I would not call a study with almost 15.000 participants a small one, but what do I know.
And it never concluded that smoke has anything close to a SMALL effect on health.
It has a BIG effect on health, but so does Obesity (did you read the study?).


Aaand Gasoline:
It requires twice as much energy to move 250 pounds than 125 pounds. As a result, a vehicle burns more gasoline carrying heavier passengers than lighter ones.
How heavy exactly are the handbags you are referring to?
If an obese person, both genders apply here, is sth. like 50 - 70 pounds more than a normal person, and handbags add wheight comparable to that added by obese individuals, do women carry around in between 100 and 140 pounds in handbags (men usually do not carry handbags)?.

Also, I will have you note that I never asked for food to be banned, but now that you mention it:

Someone mentioned earlier, that in order to be able to ban cigarettes, we would need to not only give smokers a substitute in order to not have them quit cold turkey, but also increase the efforts made to educate about the dangers of smoking.
Wouldn't the same programm work for banning unhealthy foods?
1. Put every obese individual on a slow diet with lots of exercise until they reach a healthy weight.
2. Increase the efforts made to educate about the dangers of obesity.
3. Lessen the amount of unhealthy foods available, until, one day, nothing but healthy food is available anymore.


Just to make one thing clear:
I am not in favour of banning unhealthy food.
Nor am I in favour of banning cigarettes.
The only reason I took the time to write this is because I tried to show you, that there is evidence for obesity being just as bad as smoking, if not worse. If you then decide neglect said evidence, because it contradicts your point of view, then I won't care.

 

[exessmirror]

then how should i smoke my then legalized weed if they banned tobacco

 

[Calibanbutcher]

Someone mentioned earlier, that in order to be able to ban cigarettes, we would need to not only give smokers a substitute in order to not have them quit cold turkey, but also increase the efforts made to educate about the dangers of smoking.
Wouldn't the same programm work for banning unhealthy foods?
1. Put every obese individual on a slow diet with lots of exercise until they reach a healthy weight.
2. Increase the efforts made to educate about the dangers of obesity.
3. Lessen the amount of unhealthy foods available, until, one day, nothing but healthy food is available anymore.

People need to be weaned off of cigarettes because they become physically addicted to them, so it becomes necessary to control their nicotine dosage and slowly lower it before they can overcome their addiction. Symptoms of nicotine withdrawal include intense headaches, impaired concentration, irritability, tension, disturbed sleep or drowsiness and increased appetite.

Overeating is a mental addiction, and thus is easier to break by going cold turkey.

The only reason I took the time to write this is because I tried to show you, that there is evidence for obesity being just as bad as smoking, if not worse. If you then decide neglect said evidence, because it contradicts your point of view, then I won't care.

And there's more evidence that smoking is worse than obesity, both for the people who smoke, and people around other people who smoke. If you decide to neglect said evidence because it proves you wrong, then so be it.

Present your evidence.
You seem to be in possession of evidence supporting your claim, so why don't you present it.
I went out of my way to get you the materials I cited, so where is your evidence?
Just saying "oh, there is more evidence that smoking is worse than obesity" does not make it true, which is why I would quite like you to present at least a study.
I never neglected any evidence, since NONE was given by you. Just a myriad of, as of yet, unfounded claims.
And telling me to go search for evidence because "it's there" does not come remotely close to presenting evidence.

And what is up with you misunderstanding my posts?

Of course I know that nicotine is a physical addiction, and overeating is a mental one, that was never up for debate nor was it in question. Why would you take your time to explain the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal if that has nothing to do with anyhting being said?

 

[LostAlone]

The whole problem with looking at tobacco in a vacuum is that by every objective measure, it should be illegal. Compared to every other thing that is banned on the grounds of it being bad for you, cigarettes are at the very least as bad, and in the long run probably worse.

Sooooo the only sane way to look at the argument is to remember that cigarettes (and alcohol) have been grandfathered in because they are too popular to ban. And of course when they banned drugs ostensibly because they were bad for you, it was at a time when cigarettes weren't acknowledged to be bad for you.

The deal here is that yes, it is massively hypocritical for governments for ban some things that are bad for you and not everything that's bad for you. It reduces their moral authority and respect for the idea of government. And we pretty much just have to accept that for what it is and move on with our lives.

There is no government in the first world that would even bother trying to ban smoking, because they know that they need the tax income too bad to realistically do anything about it. There are some crazy ass dictators outside of the first world who might well give it a go, but then they almost certainly couldn't enforce it anyway so its kind of a moot point.

On a more philosophical note, we live in an age of expanding liberties, not diminishing ones. Attempting to ban smoking now, even assuming that we just don't care about tax money, would be folly because most people who might be in favor aren't aggressively in favor. They are largely non-smokers and simply aren't effected. Everyone who smokes is (obviously) going to be against it. Not because they are even in favor of smoking, but they are aware that such a law would make them a criminal overnight without any justification. And then there are people who think banning anything is six-ways stupid, and those people can make a lot of noise, plus the people who genuinely like smoking (me). And through the mirical of politics, the law quietly dies.

It sounds weird, but these kind of issues cause massive problems for societies. Look at prohibition in America. The end result was gangsters making more money than ever, and normal people were able to reasonably easily buy booze in various covert ways. People just want to do the things they currently do and find a way to do it. The law can genuinely become irrelevent in these kind of cases because it cannot ever hope to regulate what people do in the privacy of their own home. You can make laws, but people will do what they want.

 

[Calibanbutcher]

Present your evidence.

You know what? My bad. I thought it would be easier to find, but I've had no luck. I guess since the rate of smoking is going down and the rate of obesity is going up, obesity is becoming worse. Oh well. I'd still rather sit in a room with a fat person than sit in a room with a smoker.

And what is up with you misunderstanding my posts?

Of course I know that nicotine is a physical addiction, and overeating is a mental one, that was never up for debate nor was it in question. Why would you take your time to explain the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal if that has nothing to do with anyhting being said?

It's because you seem to be trying to equate the two addictions as equal, simply because they are both addictions, so they must therefore be just as bad. But the addiction to nicotine is much worse than an addiction to food, and harder to recover from.

First of all:
I would probably take the fat person as well.

Second: I was not trying to equate the addictions to one another but merely compare the consequences of smoking to the consequences of a bad diet.
The addiction to nicotine is far worse than the addiction to overeating, no arguing there, but the consequences of overeating are just as bad as the consequences of smoking.

And I do apologize for my tone in the last few posts.
If I came across as harsh or condescending, or even just a plain ol' prick, please forgive me, that was not my intention. It's just that I am quite stressed at the moment, with a lot of exams coming up.

 

[Treblaine]

Extreme snip action!

What is the word that goes here? I want to say, "blammo!" but it doesn't seem to have the proper weight to it.

Schadenfreude sth...

I am sorry, but there was no Schadenfreude to be found in my post. I simply stated, that in general, obesity is worse for the health of the general public and just as harmful to the individual as smoking is.
If that came of as schadenfreudig, then I apologize.

snip

Snip

Snip

Snip.

I will admit, that I should have worded this differently:
You need app. 2g of salt a day.

And as far as no-carb diets go:
Did you read the part about NO-FAT DIETS BEING STUPID in my original post?
When did I ever ask for a no-fat, no-carb diet?
NO-FAT = NO GOOD.

And you do know, that a diet does not always entail losing weight?
I was referring to the concious choice of not eating carbs for several, sometimes even health related, reasons, and, under this prospect, eating fat is not prohibited, which is why fat is the main source of energy in a no-carb diet.
And whilst getting fat on a no-carb diet is possible, it's not as easy as getting fat on a regular diet.

As far as the "small" study is concerned:
I would not call a study with almost 15.000 participants a small one, but what do I know.
And it never concluded that smoke has anything close to a SMALL effect on health.
It has a BIG effect on health, but so does Obesity (did you read the study?).


Aaand Gasoline:
It requires twice as much energy to move 250 pounds than 125 pounds. As a result, a vehicle burns more gasoline carrying heavier passengers than lighter ones.
How heavy exactly are the handbags you are referring to?
If an obese person, both genders apply here, is sth. like 50 - 70 pounds more than a normal person, and handbags add wheight comparable to that added by obese individuals, do women carry around in between 100 and 140 pounds in handbags (men usually do not carry handbags)?.

Also, I will have you note that I never asked for food to be banned, but now that you mention it:

Someone mentioned earlier, that in order to be able to ban cigarettes, we would need to not only give smokers a substitute in order to not have them quit cold turkey, but also increase the efforts made to educate about the dangers of smoking.
Wouldn't the same programm work for banning unhealthy foods?
1. Put every obese individual on a slow diet with lots of exercise until they reach a healthy weight.
2. Increase the efforts made to educate about the dangers of obesity.
3. Lessen the amount of unhealthy foods available, until, one day, nothing but healthy food is available anymore.


Just to make one thing clear:
I am not in favour of banning unhealthy food.
Nor am I in favour of banning cigarettes.
The only reason I took the time to write this is because I tried to show you, that there is evidence for obesity being just as bad as smoking, if not worse. If you then decide neglect said evidence, because it contradicts your point of view, then I won't care.

There WAS blatant Schadenfreude in the "blammo" response to people suffering... in LastGreatBlasphemer's post. Not in your post.

If you arrest the 30% of the population and put them on a starvation diet with forced labour not only will you GUARANTEE to lose their vote in the next election but as soon as they are released they will go back as you did not change the actual factors that lead to them deciding to eat to much and exercise too little.

Yes, obesity is a problem. But it isn't caused by food any more than suicides are caused by rope, or self harm is caused by knives. Obesity is a personal problem of large parts of the population who don't have to and don't want to exercise, who use food for enjoyment rather than nutrition and don't care about their appearance. Realise one of the biggest reasons people control their weight is vanity.

You ban "unhealthy" foods then they will make their own. Pancakes, very unhealthy but EASY to make, just flour, eggs and milk with some butter or vegetable oil then smear with something sweet. There is no such thing as unhealthy foods, there are foods with high energy. Unhealthy foods is a contradictions in terms: foods provide nutrition, nutrition is healthy. Foods become unhealthy when you eat too much and don't have enough exercise. The Cholesterol myth has been busted, high cholesterol foods like eggs are not unhealthy. The distinction between saturated or unsaturated fats is trivial, either way they lead to obesity if you don't exercise enough.

The fastest sprinter in the world, Usain Bolt, lived on deep fried chicken nuggets and other junk food leading up to his multiple record breaking sprints.

And this is FINE for him as he has an active and energetic lifestyle.

You ban sugary drinks and fatties will drink sports drinks, which are genuinely useful to athletes for their high energy content.

"It requires twice as much energy to move 250 pounds than 125 pounds."

Really? 2x the energy to move 2x the weight? But a fraction of a population being overweight rather than healthy weight doesn't double the weight of a vehicle. The majority of the weight of a bus is THE BUS. The extra weight from the passengers being overweight rather than a healthy weight is a trivial difference that could easily be offset by how overweight people are more likely not to go out at all.

It's frankly a ridiculously spurious concern that fat people are affecting others through the marginally extra gasoline used to move them around as surely that doesn't just apply to obese people, but on the actual operators of such vehicles and EVERYONE who uses them for WHATEVER reason.

Chain smokers weren't banned from pubs ALL SMOKERS were, even if they just had one cigarette.

If vehicle emissions are a problem, then the VEHICLES need to be sorted out, not target the individuals using them who contribute more weight. Everyone who contributes to their use is at fault. "Gasoline burned Per person" is irrelevant. That's like a smoker smoking "only one cigarette" in a no-smoking zone.

This is an UTTERLY TRANSPARENT attempt at trying to contort a scenario where fat people hurt others in the same sense that second hand smoke from smokers hurts others. Nope.

Smoking cigarettes AT ALL and the complex relationship of 'eating too many calories and not exerting enough' are both unhealthy.

But smoking is restricted the way it is because of how it DIRECTLY affects other people from the smoke emitted, littering and fires caused.

The sale of tobacco could be banned as it ONLY serves the function of causing harm to no benefit other than feeding a craving that the smoking itself CAUSED. There is no safe nor beneficial amount of smoke to consume. You can't sell asbestos insulation because it causes cancer.

The sale of high-energy foods could not be banned as food, even high energy food is healthy with the right level of exertion. "Unhealthy food" is an oxymoron. You can have an unhealthy diet, which is a product of how much of what types of food in comparison with levels of exertion.

 

[Adultism]

I think smoking should be compulsory, so people can be reminded every single day of their lives via public announcements and cigarette packs that they're gonna die sooo fucking bad.
/iamdick

Thats already happening, seen the commercials?

 

[emeraldrafael]

Alcohol (in todays day and age and this is consumable drinking alcohol such as beer whiskey etc) doesnt help anybody, does about as much harm as cigerettes and it isnt banned, so I doubt youd ever get cigarettes banned. So being realistic, I think the age to buy them should be raised, and like alcohol, if you see someone below that age smoking them, they should be punished, because as far a I know its not illegale to smoke them, just buy them if your underaged.

hehe, my captcha was zero tolerance, which is pretty much how i feel about any abusive substance.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

"Ciggies should be banned, pot FTW!"

Uh, yeah. Sure. Except most Western powers perceive taxes on cigarettes, which have become a pretty important part of Canada and the United States' economy, among others. Any political party offers to ban cigarettes in Canada, and you can bet your ass Imperial Tobacco and its lobbyists are going to put pressure on Ottawa so whatever proposed anti-tobacco bill that could crop up will be crushed like a cigarette butt.

The most they've done since cigarettes became mainstream in Western society is restrict the spaces where you're allowed to smoke. Canada's added huge anti-smoking ads on cigarette packs that take up more than two thirds of a jumbo pack's size and are intentionally graphic; but that won't deter anyone who's severely addicted to cancer sticks. They've progressed to showing us the most graphic, agonizing shots of people in advanced emphysema or surgery camera shots of late-stage cancerous tumors, or even utterly destroyed gums and teeth - but that doesn't stop anyone.

Not that pot is any better, anyway. Most people don't smoke it pure and cut it with tobacco. On a long enough timeline, there isn't much of a difference between smoking a doobie outside of Jamaica and going through a pack of filtered cigs per day. Both can potentially kill you dead.

i didn't post that!

I know, it was my more eloquent attempt at snipping your post, in case anyone who comes across my post but is too lazy to check out the OP wants a super-compressed version of your starting statement.

It wasn't meant to be accurate, and it gets the point across a tad more than just "Snip". You didn't write that verbatim, but it's more or less what you meant. At least, what you *seemed* to mean as I could understand it.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

Legalize EVERYTHING.

To quote Mr. Carlin, "Think of it as passive eugenics."